


Sweet Caroline

by Dearly_Divided



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Baking, Dancing, Domestic Bliss, F/M, John is soft and very much in love, Romantic Fluff, Soft and Fluffy, Songfic, two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 04:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dearly_Divided/pseuds/Dearly_Divided
Summary: Eleanor likes to listen to music while she bakes. John likes to watch her.Occasionally he gets a little carried away.





	Sweet Caroline

For as long as she could remember, Eleanor always had music playing as she baked. She was almost certain that it was a tradition borne from her younger sister’s inability to merely sit and watch her in the kitchen. Liz had always had the attention span of a gnat, and it was easier for her to stick around till the food was ready when there was something else to keep her distracted.

Liz always chose the music, there were her favourites of course, the classics they’d never tire of hearing, but she liked to switch it up too. She’d inherited their mother’s eclectic taste in music, but Eleanor had never minded. Sure, Liz’s rap phase had been _interesting _to say the least, but it didn’t really matter what music was playing. It wasn’t the song that made her happy, but the sight of her sister dancing around the kitchen without a care in the world, often getting in the way of Eleanor’s actual baking.

She hadn’t really minded that either.

It had been years since Rook baked with her sister, but the habit stuck to the point where it felt weird trying to cook without some kind of background melody.

John, on the other hand, didn’t really get the whole music and baking thing, but he too indulged her. Maybe he realised that it wasn’t just some weird habit but something so much deeper and more meaningful, or maybe he just liked the sight of her in his barely used kitchen, flitting around the counter, her hips swaying to the beat of the music, a wide, goofy grin lighting up her face. Either way, it wasn’t unusual for John to be drawn from the mounds of paperwork in his office by the quiet hum of music.

Unlike her sister, John had no issue sitting still at the countertop and watching with mesmerised eyes as Eleanor baked.

Well, _most_ of the time.

John had a thing for the classics. 

It just so happened that he was in one of those moods on the afternoon when Eleanor was actually more focused on the mixing bowl in her hands and the recipe in front of her than the actual music playing around her. Distantly, her brain registered the sounds of Fleetwood Mac’s _Rhiannon _fading away and the familiar beat of _Sweet Caroline_ begin to flow from John’s state of the art speakers.

Without even truly being aware of it, she began to mouth the words, swaying in time with the rhythm as one finger trailed across the recipe, making sure the exact measurements for each ingredient were seared into her brain. There could be no mistakes, not with such an important cake. Every year, without fail, this cake nearly broke her.

_Where it began, I can’t begin to knowing_  
But then I know it’s growing strong  


Half a cup of cocoa powder, half a teaspoon of baking soda, two teaspoons of vanilla extract… 

_Was in the spring_

She knew the recipe off by heart, Lord knew she’d made it enough times before, but it had to be perfect, impeccable, _flawless_. Food of the Gods, excuse the blasphemy.

_Then spring became the summer_

She was so focused on the damned recipe, carefully scrapping off the excess flour from the measuring cup with the back of her knife that she missed the telltale sounds of John’s footsteps approaching.

_Who’d have believed you’d come along_

She almost jumped out of her skin when she felt his arms wrap around her waist, pulling her back against his chest as he nuzzled his bearded chin into the crook of her neck.

_Hands, touching hands_

“John, Jesus Christ!” she yelped, dropping the cup and spilling all of the flour onto the kitchen bench. John, clearly unrepentant, merely laughed, pressing his lips against the soft skin of her neck.

_Reaching out, touching me, touching you…_ _   
_

“Dance with me,” he breathed, only giving her a split second to register his words before he quite literally whirled her across the kitchen floor, spinning her out wide and giving her a charming grin that once upon a time made her melt into a puddle. 

Lord help her, it still did.

Then he began to sing, still holding her hand like he was Fred Astaire and she Ginger Rogers. 

_“Sweet Caroline  
Good times never seemed so good,”_

For a moment, Eleanor just stared at him, utterly bewildered by the sudden change in events. But the look on his face, the delight that danced in those beautiful blues of his - Eleanor had always been helpless to resist.

_“I’d be inclined_  
To believe they never would  
But now I…”

As he tugged, Rook allowed herself to be spun back into his arms, unable to help the laughter that bubbled out of her as she went. Screw the cake, some things, like dancing with the man she loved in their kitchen, were far more important.

_“Look at the night and it don’t seem so lonely  
We filled it up with only two,”_

John steadied her before she could loose her balance and topple over, encircling her with his arms once more as he began to sway to the melody, crooning the lyrics in her ear with a voice that made her heart skip a beat and butterflies fill her stomach. He was far better a singer than a fancy lawyer from Atlanta had any right to be.

_“And when I hurt_  
Hurting runs off my shoulders  
How can I hurt when I’m holding you,”

Eleanor’s arms lifted from her sides, one hand finding the back of John’s neck, caressing it gently, the other twisting rhythmically along to the tune. John just growled lowly, pressing himself closer to her, so that she could feel his chest rise and fall with every breath, the steady beat of his heart against her back as they danced together.

_“One, touching one,”_

John reached up to twine his long, tattooed fingers with hers, twirling her again, letting her go as she spun back around to face him.

_“Reaching out, touching me, touching you…”_

With a cheesy grin that revealed exactly how much fun he was having, John lifted his arms up and began to snap his fingers, doing a strange shimmying shrug thing with his shoulders as his hips swung from side to side that would have looked ridiculous had it been anyone else doing it. And yet, John just looked adorable. If she didn’t love him so much, it might have been infuriating. _  
_

_“Sweet Caroline  
Good times never seemed so good,”_

She could only laugh, mirroring his _interesting_ moves with far less grace and poise. As ridiculous as she knew she must have looked, John still looked at her like she was the most wonderful and breathtaking creature he’d ever seen.

_“I’d be inclined,”_

His arms dropped her shoulders, looping around her neck and drawing her closer once more.

_“To believe they never would_   
_Oh no, no,”_

“I love you,” he murmured, his voice so quiet that it was almost lost to the music.

Eleanor just smiled back at him, leaning forward and capturing his lips in a soft and heartfelt kiss. 

“You’re rather cute when you wanna be, you know that?” she asked with a smirk as she pulled away, keeping one hand pressed against his cheek, the other coming up to rest across his heart. “And I love you, too.”

The beaming grin that lit up his face so handsomely should have long since stopped having the ability to make her melt, and yet…

“Kiss me again,” she breathed. His eyes glinting with something sinful, John enthusiastically obliged her.

_Sweet Caroline  
Good times never seemed so good_

As his lips slipped from hers, his mouth moving along the her jaw, then down the delicate curve of her neck Eleanor let out a soft, breathless moan, her own fingers weaving through his dark locks, holding him against her._  
_

_Sweet Caroline  
I believe they never could_

Sitting half made on the kitchen counter, the birthday cake she’d so painstakingly attempted to prepare was quickly forgotten as John lifted Eleanor up into his arms and whisked her away from the kitchen entirely.

_Sweet Caroline…_


End file.
